you'll kill me if you stop ☼ call me by your name & kill your darlings

one

new york city, sometime in the mid 50s

it's hard to tell where this whole thing started. it's even hard to tell when it ended, or if it even ended. maybe that's just me not wanting to admit that it's over.

i'd like to think it started that evening after dinner with my parents, the scraping of our forks against plates the loudest noise by far. anyone at that table could tell our family was falling apart. it's like we all knew it, but just like the events of this year, we didn't want to accept it. so we scraped our forks against our plates and ate our mac n' cheese, not pretending it wasn't happening, not accepting it, but not trying to cover it up, either.

anyone could've looked through the small windows above the sink at our kitchen table and see none of us were alike, as if we were strangers, refusing to get to know one another. like we weren't a real family, more like one in a commercial between takes. sitting there awkwardly, not knowing how to start a conversation, or maybe not knowing if the silence was better than any crumby conversation that would happen if one of us opened our mouths.

maybe it started after dinner, when i tucked my mom into bed for the last time in my life. maybe it started then because somewhere inside me i knew that this would be the last time, and what started it was the guilt inside me for not telling her. maybe if i told her that night, none of it would've ever happened, and i never would've left her side.

i swept the dinner under the cabinets because i couldn't muster up the strength to see it covering the floor, and not mustering the strength to just put it in the trash and send it away forever. it was just there, but hidden.

my dad was a great guy. a great poet, and also a great negotiator. he brought the mail from the past few days into the house and gave me a look that made my stomach want to join the dust hidden under the cabinets.

"elio," he said, in his calm, terrifying dad voice.

"yeah," i replied, swallowing the excitement and fear built up in my bones.

"were you gonna tell me you applied?"

i started to bite my lip, and my dad adjusted his glasses. i wasn't going to answer the possibly already rhetorical question. it was too late.

i walked slowly over to him, careful to keep my voice low and my steps low and my nerves low, becuase my nerves alone could be enough to wake my mom. he handed me the letter and sat down at the table, the dirty plates i had yet to wash still sat at each place, like a ghost family was still dividing the last portions of the meal. i felt almost bad for sitting down at the table, following my dad's silent gesture to take a seat with him.

opening the letter felt like an impossibly long and unachievable task.

"i got in," i said, more of a breath than a string of words.

my dad smiled. he always dreamed of going to columbia when he was younger, and now i had the chance to do what he never did.

i think that's where it really started, though i might contradict myself later. the words of acceptance, in the end, were the words that changed my life.

my dad didn't say any words of congratulations to me. that wasn't him. instead, he convinced me to promise to come home at least every other weekend to check in on him, but mostly my mom. that was the thing that got me. i knew he wouldn't be able to take care of him and my mom by himself. that's why i agreed.

that's why my dad was such a good negotiator. he didn't have to make any points. he already knew what would make me tick, he just had to infer how to get there.

i don't remember much of the next week or so before i left, because everything felt stiff and forced, the secret between me and my dad melting the glue that was trying to dry and hold everything in place. i spent most of the time out, shopping for new clothes or at the movies. i didn't say a single word to my mom. i didn't tuck her in. i didn't sweep the floor. i just existed until i could finally live.